Just five words and two numbers

Tom Gallagher
|
Sep. 12, 2012
NCR Today

In a extraordinary story, one 9/11 victim in the World Trade Center, Randy Scott, scribbled a note from the 84th floor, tossed it out the window. Ten years later, the note found its way to Scott's wife and children. It's a gripping story.

The Huffington Post covers the story[1] that originated in the Stamford Advocate :

A note, penned by Randy Scott on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, has been delivered to the late broker's family more than a decade later.

It reads, simply, "84th floor, West Office, 12 people trapped," and for Randy's wife, Denise, "it just changes everything." She told the Stamford Advocate she and her three daughters assumed their father had died instantly. "You don't want them to suffer. They're trapped in a burning building. It's just an unspeakable horror. And then you get this 10 years later."

According to the NY Daily News, Denise had been informed of the note a year ago by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York's Forensic Investigations division. Someone had discovered it downtown on that fateful day and given it to a guard at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The guard went to call it in, but was distracted -- at that moment, the building collapsed.

From there, the note took a winding path to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, where it stayed put for the next ten years. The Daily Mail reports thatRandy Scott was identified by a small patch of blood on the note. Officials tested for DNA, then called Denise with the results.

"The minute I saw it I didn't need to see the DNA test," Denise explained to theAdvocate. "I saw the handwriting. It's Randy's handwriting."